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California district modernizes ‘sexist’ dress code

California district modernizes ‘sexist’ dress code

ALAMEDA, Calif. (AP) — The relaxed new dress code at public schools in the small city of Alameda, across the bay from San Francisco, is intentionally specific: Midriff-baring shirts are acceptable attire, so are tank tops with spaghetti straps and other once-banned items like micro-mini skirts and short shorts.

As students settle into the new school term, gone are restrictions on ripped jeans and hoodies in class. If students want to come to school in pajamas, that’s OK, too.

The new policy amounts to a sweeping reversal of the modern school dress code and makes Alameda the latest school district in the country to adopt a more permissive policy it says is less sexist.

Students who initiated the change say many of the old rules that barred too much skin disproportionately targeted girls, while language that called such attire “distracting” sent the wrong message.

“If someone is wearing a short shirt and you can see her stomach, it’s not her fault that she’s distracting other people,” said Henry Mills, 14, an incoming freshman at Alameda High School who worked with a committee of middle school students and teacher advisers to revise the policy. “There was language that mainly affected girls, and that wasn’t OK.”

Dress codes have long been the territory of contention and rebellion, but the reversal in Alameda shows a generational shift that students and teachers say was partly influenced by broader conversations on gender stemming from the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct and a national resurgence of student activism.

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Approved by the school board on a trial basis over summer break, the new dress code is stirring back-to-school discussions about what role schools should have in socializing children.

There are sharply critical voices of the new dress code.

Math teacher Marie Hsu said she’s all for equity but that the new rules send an unintentional message that it’s fine, even appropriate, to “sex it up.”

“It’s good not to punish girls for being distractions. I fully, fully get that,” said Hsu, who teaches at Lincoln Middle School and is an Alameda resident with two young children. “But I think it’s extraordinarily misled.”

Alameda mother Paula Walker says she may be “old school,” but she didn’t mind the bans against revealing clothing.

Dress codes and their severity vary widely nationwide. Twenty-four states have policies that give local school districts the power to adopt their own dress codes or uniform policies, according to the Education Commission of the States, a nonprofit that tracks education policy.

Some have statewide policies, like Arkansas, which passed a 2011 law requiring school districts “to prohibit the wearing of clothing that exposes underwear, buttocks, or the breast of a female.”

A Texas high school was recently criticized for a back-to-school video on dress codes that only featured girls. The video shown at Marcus High School in a Dallas suburb showed girls in short shorts getting reprimanded as the song “Bad Girls” by M.I.A. played in the background. Students slammed it as sexist on social media, prompting the principal to apologize, saying the video “absolutely missed the mark.”

Alameda’s new dress code was modeled after a suggested policy by the Oregon chapter of the National Organization for Women, drafted in 2016 to “update and improve” dress codes, avoid rules that reinforce gender stereotypes and minimize unnecessary discipline or “body shaming.”

Portland, Oregon’s public school district adopted a new policy in 2016, followed by Evanston, Illinois, in 2017, both of which incorporated NOW’s suggestions.

Portland’s relaxed dress code is considered a success, said Carol Campbell, principal at Grant High School.

Campbell said students wear appropriate clothing most of the time and it was “a huge relief” that staff could now focus on teaching, rather than necklines and hemlines.

“It’s changed the culture of how students view each other,” she said. “When we have rules and dress codes that particularly target one group it sounds like we’re blaming that group, which always tended to be women.”

Students in Alameda, Portland and Evanston have freedom to wear mostly anything as long as it includes a bottom, top, shoes, covers private parts and does not contain violent images, hate speech, profanity or pornography.

Vague language in the old Alameda policy caused confusion, which led to arbitrary enforcement, students and teachers said. There was, for example, a “three-finger” rule on the width of tank top straps and a ban on shorts and skirts shorter than “mid-thigh” and a rule against “low-cut tank tops.”

Girls with more developed bodies often were singled out for discipline ranging from lunch detention, picking up trash on campus, a phone call home or having to change into baggy clothing.

Stella Bourgoin said she makes her sixth-grade daughter dress modestly but she supports the policy mainly for convenience.

“If you go to a store, every pair of jeans has a rip in it. It’s easier this way,” Bourgoin said.

Good grief changing these schools into the same school that Ford attended saying okay to have sex, drink, etc., etc. When you dress like a street walker, don’t be surprised when you are raped because you are showing your wares are for sale, sooooo Modesty for both sexes should be brought back and then teach them what with real education. Teachers seem to dress sexy as well and what the heck enjoy the young boys too. What we need is a cruel but real lesson in respect, modesty in both sexes (there ain’t more than two because you CANNOT change your DNA), allow no vulgar language and even less profanity, etc., etc. Time to say and show respect to our Flag and Constitution, and if not quiet and learning in any level or not speaking English, then they will not be allowed to enter the school. Remember, it is our taxes paying for this crap and time we said no more taxes local or federal to any school that doesn’t go back in time to really know how to dress, teach and learn and have morals/values, kindness, and so much more as real human beings.

Amen and amen! Little girls of any age with 90% of their bodies exposed are open invitations and committing sexual abuse in their own narcissistic, egomaniacal way. If they have no morality to display, cover them up by law. Now wouldn’t that be a world even more rotten than we already have?

Where are the parents? Oh, I forgot the parents live in communist Kalifornia, so they condone their daughters looking like you know whats in school. In the 1950’s and 60’s, we had a dress code. Girls dresses / skirts at the knee or below, no jeans for either sex and a button down shirt for us guys. Liberalism, the moral degradation of society.

Studies have shown that students in uniforms perform better in school.
My thoughts:
There are no issues with some kids being embarrassed by their clothes.
There is no teen trauma over what to wear in the morning.
When you put on your ‘learning’ clothes you put aside the distracting issues in life.
No standards sends the wrong message. In real life there will always be standards.

So true. In my home town back in England, we had 4 elementary schools (equal to primary’s here), 3 middle schools (equal to junior highs) and 3 upper schools (equal to highs).. OF THE 2 elementary schools that did NOT HAVE uniform requirements, the 1 middle and 1 upper school that didn’t, only ONE OF those 4, had test scores consistently ranking them in the same area as those schools that DID have uniform requirements.. THE OTHER 3 were always BELOW.. in one case, 20% below.

When switched to a Catholic school, uniforms, certain type of shoes, stand when teacher came into the room, respect each and everyone in the room, no filthy language (not that many didn’t know because my parents sure used it but we were not allowed to and if we did, we got soap in the mouth. Yuck! Uniforms save money and embarrassment.

This is not progressive. Its regressive…. It a reverting back to the pre-Christianity days of the pagan world, which much practiced child sacrifice…. Today we have abortion. Its not progressive. Its regressive. It will become regressive even a step further if the pedophile sect makes a move for acceptance, just like the gays have been able to forge ahead when the heterosexual population starting in the 60’s dissipated itself through “progressive” promiscuity done in the name of ‘liberation.’

School uniforms for all students. My sister had a student who complained that the boys were calling her sexually explicit names and oogling her chest. To the boys my sister told them to show respect and ask if they wanted their mother or sisters to be spoken to that way. To the well endowed young lady my sister explained that when you are looking for a doctor you look for someone in a longer white lab coat, when you are looking for a police officer you look for a person in a dark blue outfit with a cap and other specific accessories, when you are looking for a ranger at a park you look for someone in a dark green and beige outfit with a specific style of hat, etc. The uniform tells you what they do. So, when you show up for school dressed like you are in the ‘uniform’ of women who walk the streets looking for clients it is no surprise that people see you that way. The girl started wearing more covering clothes and the boys stopped saying anything.

Excellent advice. Bravo to your sister for her for her advice and kudos to you for sharing it with us. As a single parent of a grade school child in the mid-nineties, one of his teachers and the principal told me they thought he should be put on Ritalin. (He was a rambunctious boy, for Heaven’s sake.) I shared my concerns with his doctor that they weren’t medically qualified to make such assessments and he replied, “Well, they’re ‘Professionals'”. I then looked him in the eye and said, “So are prostitutes, but I wouldn’t go to one for medical advice”. I had CPS (Child Protective Services) at my door two days later. After I told them I wouldn’t put him on a drug that the US Army wouldn’t accept volunteers who had been, or were on, they went away.

Once again, the Collectivist Left makes a decision that demonstrates their total rejection of common sense concerning human nature.
Of course people are willing to work without reward while others get paid to do nothing.
Of course there will be no gun crimes if guns are illegal.
Of course teenagers won’t have problems with sexual harassment and assault if they are allowed to wear revealing clothes.

Dress codes were enacted to prevent children from looking like well-experienced prostitutes. These are needed because some parents are obvious to the issues involved. Too few actually care whether their “sweet little thing” has clothes that not only reveal but highlight their “body parts” in highly inappropriate ways.

Gradually, total nudity will become “acceptable” and when this happens, some ignorant people will still wonder why sexual harassment, and sexual contact, and teen pregnancy become even worse than they are today.

“Wake up, mommy and daddy, and take a look at what your kids are (not) wearing !!”

I guess the goal of all of those moviemakers in Hollywood and advertisers using partially clad females was to “adopt a more permissive policy it says is less sexist.” Makes perfect sense if you’re a degenerate libtard with no morals or core values, I guess?!? Stupid me!! I always thought they were trying to be sexually titillating in trying to promote their movies and sell their products. Next time my wife tries to tell me to “dress up” I’m going to use this argument and demand that she go out into public with me wearing my underwear, the old one with holes for ventilation in it because we live in a more sexually permissive era and that she is behind the curve and just old fashioned. Thank you Alameda Public Schools in Kalifornia for enlightening me!! Much appreciated!! But I simply refuse to give up my plastic straws, sorry!!

I went to High School in California during the late 60s & early 70’s. Our dress code was that all students were required to wear shoes. Perhaps the idea was, if what you wore was causing problems…you brought them upon yourself, and you’d have to either deal with them or learn to live with them.

It wasn’t very “#metoo;” but in hindsight, I think it was a pretty libertarian way to approach the problem, by looking at the issues and outcomes as NOT being their problem.

There was an old expression: “To catch what you’re fishing for, requires the use of the correct bait.”

I guess looking “slutty” and sexualized will garner girls attention…but, mostly from guys looking for slutty-looking girls…typically not with the intent of engaging in stimulating conversations and discussing philosophy.

Another old adage: “You can choose your actions; but, you don’t get to choose the consequences resulting from your actions.”

While everyone should demonstrate respect; and it shouldn’t matter what a girl wears; but it is a sad fact of life; not everyone is a nice person.

Dressing like a hooker will likely attract the type of person who with treat you like a hooker.

You have to rememeber, that liberals don’t follow the same rules they push on conservatives.
SO if its a conservative’s fault other people got offended, thus distracted because of something HE wore, IT WILL NEVER be seen the same way when its a liberal doing it.